Economy #1: How Money is Created

This is the first post in my World-Changing Wednesday series. Tune is each Wednesday to read my thoughts on an issue which I think will have a huge impact on how we live our lives in the years to come.

This week, I’m going to talk about how money is created. If you are anything like me, you’ve probably never even given this topic a second thought. In hindsight, this attitude might have been a little crazy given that most of us live our lives in pursuit of money. In our culture we’ve been taught that money buys us happiness. Without consciously choosing to do so, we’ll seek riches as a means of fulfillment and in the process we’ll put the earning of money above all other pursuits. However once you understand the nature of money, you may think twice about its relative value.

The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled ~ John Kenneth Galbraith, Economist

Where does money come from?

Most people imagine that the government makes money. Indeed the coins and paper we usually consider to be money are produced by a government agency known as the mint, but the vast majority is created by private corporations known as banks.

Most of us probably think that banks lend out money that they have on deposit from peoples’ savings, but this is not the case. The banks simply create money out of thin air, based on the borrower’s promise to pay. The borrower agrees to pay back the money loaned to them, plus interest and if they don’t they will forfeit their collateral (i.e. car or home).

So, for that big commitment made by the borrower, you’d think there would have to be some sort of large commitment on the banks behalf, wouldn’t you? In fact, all the bank needs to do in this exchange is to conjure out of thin air, the amount of the loan and write it into the borrowers account. So you’re now thinking, ‘Surely this can’t be true?’ But it is.

Money is loaned into existence.

Let me try to explain. If it takes you a couple of reads to get this, don’t worry. I’ve been there. It’s actually a pretty simple process, but it is difficult to accept. The following explanation applies to the process in the USA, but the system is similar in all industrialised nations.

Firstly, let’s imagine that a brand new bank has just opened up in town and it has no depositors yet. To get things started, the bank’s investors have made a reserve deposit of $1111.12 of existing cash money at the Central Bank.

Step 1. The bank welcomes their first loan customer who needs $10,000 to buy a car. At the 9:1 reserve ratio required in the USA, the bank’s reserve legally allows it to conjur into existence nine times that amount (9 x $1111.12 = $10,000). This $10,000 is not taken from anywhere. It’s brand new money simply typed into the borrowers account as bank credit. The borrower then writes a cheque (check) against that credit to buy a used car.

Step 2. The seller of the used car then deposits this newly created $10,000 at her bank. Money deposited into commercial banks can then be loaned out on a 9:1 ratio. So for the $10,000 deposited, $9,000 could be loaned out and the bank would keep $1,000 in reserve.

Step 3. If that $9,000 is then deposited in a bank, that deposit can again be used for a third issue of bank credit, this time for the amount of $8,100. Each new deposit contains the potential for a slightly smaller loan. In all likelihood, this process will repeat over and over until nearly $100,000 of brand new money has been created within the banking system.

All of this new money has been created entirely from debt and the whole process has been legally authorised by the initial reserve deposit of just $1111.12 which is sitting at the Central Bank. So ultimately, the banks initial Central Bank reserve deposit of $1111.12 allows it to collect interest on up to $100,000 that the bank never had.

Banks loan money they DO NOT HAVE!

What’s even more interesting is that the required reserve ratio in Australia, Canada and the UK is 0%. There is no statutory limitation to the amount of artificial money that can be created by the banks.

Now while there are some complex rules I won’t go into, the reality is quite simple. Banks can create as much money as we can borrow.

Despite, the fact that we usually think of money as the physical cash and coins we have in our wallets, Government created money typically accounts for less than 5% of the money in circulation. More than 95% of all money in the world today was loaned into existence. Is this all real money? Sure it is….. especially if it’s in your bank account.

Ok….How’s your brain doing?

I’m afraid that the ordinary citizen will not like to be told that banks can and do create money …. And they who control the credit of the nation direct the policy of Governments and hold in the hollow of their hands the destiny of the people. ~ Reginald McKenna, past Chairman of the Board, Midlands Bank of England.

Now that you know all this, give some thought to what might happen if everyone who had money in the bank walked in and tried to take all their money out at once. Remember, depending on your country, the banks have been holding somewhere between 0-10% of your deposit in reserve. How many people will receive their deposits back before the bank has to close it’s doors because it’s run out of money?

Also give some thought to what happens when people default on their loans. This system works great while people are able to keep making their payments, but what happens to the money when loans don’t get repaid?

You may also have noticed that we haven’t really touched on an important aspect of this whole system……. Interest. Where does the money come from to pay the interest on all the loans? If all the loans are paid back without interest, we can undo the entire string of transactions, but when we factor in interest, there suddenly isn’t enough money to pay back all the loans.

Ok, I think I’ve written enough for today, so I’m going to leave the next part of this discussion to another day. It’s a lot to digest all at once, so as long as you come away from today understanding that all money is loaned into existence you’ll have a good basis for understanding why this might create problems within our society.

Please note that I am not an economics expert. I’m simply an ordinary gal trying to make sense of a complex world. I urge you to do your own reading on this subject. Here’s some good places to get started:

Nice post. My partner Sam wrote a similar thing recently on her blog. It takes a while to get to grips with the shear stupidity of this system, but once you do the consequences are logical and unavoidable. It’s a shame that so few people take the time to do so.

A local journalist (who specialises in economic matters) recently said that “the main purpose of growth is to improve our standard of living”. Umm. No. The main purpose of growth is to allow us to pay service existing debt. These people live is a make-believe fantasy world.

Sorry pal, but this sort of thing just does not help at all. It is a bit like school level economics, and just discovering FR banking.

I personally think a FR system is an excellent thing as it allows liquidity at the point of requirement. The main problem is managing the FR ratios, and bad management in anything leads to the excrement hitting the fan.

Still if you ever have a eureka moment and come up with a good alternative I am all ears.

How about a system based on worth?
Not a system based on debt.
It should by now, be very plain to most thinking people, that there are only certain people that are going to make out in a monetary system such as the present one.
It is engineered to fail at some point, actually at any point.
We have seen the engineered failure of this system in the past, several times.
We are fast approaching the tipping point. Can you say ponzi scheme?

What is not explained here is that when a bank lends money created out of thin air say $100,000 on a home that in exchange for the money they created they take a mortage on the home which the becomes a asset of the baqnk that offsets the liability of the money loaned. You don’t pay the loan, they get the house and sell it to satisfy the liability.

This is just wrong. absolutely wrong! Banks cannot lend money they do not borrow or earn. If that were the case Lehmanns would have just sat pretty without a balancced sheet, and No bank would need to go to the wholesale markets to fill their books. For each Deit there must be a corresponding credit, simple accounting. for a real history of money see http://iwillknow.jesaurai.net/?p=402 . Central banks do Quantitative Ease which is a bit of an accounting trick see, http://iwillknow.jesaurai.net/?p=382 but the funds still must balance off. They can do this because they are the base of value. The state. Banks cannot if they did it would be fraud.

Lets back up a minute, you are right about the loan process that they don’t lend out depositors money. What actually happens is the banks assets & liabilities “Increase” by the amount of the loan. So if a bank has 100,000 in assets & liabilities it must keep 10% as reserves and thus can loan out 90,000. When it makes that 90,000 loan it’s ledgers become 190,000 on both the assets & liabilities. When the borrower uses the check and it clears, the banks ledger account returns to its pre- loan level of 100,000. So the bank doesn’t loose anything and it didn’t give anything out to start with. I know this because I have a book published by the American Bankers Association, called “Money & Banking” By David H. Friedman who was the vice president for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. He also wrote the curriculum for the American Bankers Association for banker training that is the standard for colleges in america.

If you want another proof of bank fraud, go read U.S.C title 12 section 1813 (L) term for Deposit. It tells you that all negotiable instruments including promissory notes, bankers acceptances, drafts and the like must be considered as the equivalent of money!! So we have United States Code (Statutes) that says that promissory notes are money. Also the dollar bill is just a debt obligation of the United States to promise to pay a debt. Go read title 18 section 8 term obligation!!! Hope you have found an interest to check out what I have said here. You can purchase the money & banking book on Amazon, Ebay ect. for around 10 to 30 to 100 bucks depending on if you want new or used. Also when purchasing the book buy some dictionaries such as Barron’s banking, Financing & accounting. That will help you to understand what you are reading. I have enjoyed reading the post here, hope to read more.

It is precisely through my research of the monetary system, researching documents and history of how we have arrived at the system we now have, that I have renounced the usefulness of money in my own lif; pe and chosen to live only with resources which actually have value. I believe relationships are the true currency of value; people living and working together to have shelter, food, and life’s vital needs. I understand this lifestyle is not the way things currently are, but I am much more concerned with living out a solution to eliminate poverty. And viewing the earth as a place with abundant resources, the majority of the world living in poverty simply makes no sense. And money is the excuse I hear most often as the inhibiting force to solving problems and seeing life flourish. So let’s change that.

If I work (labour and produce something of value to contribute to an economy’s pool of wealth)
I get paid. Money in any form represents my efforts, these days it is largely electronic digits on a computer.
Say I earned $5…..for an hour’s work, I get hungry and I buy a hamburger from a store for.. $5.
What has happened here?
2 people, 1 being me (the buyer), transacted, I gave up a token of my efforts, ie 5$, for the burger at an agreed value of $5, the burger then was representative of the maker’s (the seller) efforts. A trade of like value was completed without any intervention….a free market.

Now apply this to a larger transaction, say for a house.

There is a buyer and a seller, right?

I am the buyer and the seller has a house for sale, right?

I agree to purchase the house for say , $100,000.

I then issue my promise to pay $100,000 by signing a note, this promise is backed by my future labour and production and has legal consideration of value (this is the money creation, I created it and backed it with my credit worthy promise) and the seller is paid.

I get the house which the seller gave up as consideration in the deal and it is then my obligation to pay and retire the $100,000 from circulation. ie. fulfil my promise.

Today, a bank intervenes in this trade, in effect stealing the principal amount only I can create and then with some slick accounting, pretends to loan it to me and charges me interest for the privilege of being robbed! The bank gave up nothing of it’s own commensurable to the debt that it today falsifies to itself and charges me interest as if it had anything of it’s own at stake.

Money is simply a token or representation of one’s labour and production. It is the property of no one! Especially not a bank!
It’s merely a medium of exchange, It could be paper, gold, electronic digits, feathers , tally sticks…what is used to represent it is irrelevant. It is the accounting that is important.

Money is not created as a debt to the bank! It is an obligation to fulfil a promise.
Money is not created out of thin air or nothing, nor is it a fiction!
We the people create it when we sign a promissory note and it has the value of our blood, sweat and tears backing it, hardly nothing, don’t you think?

We fund every economic activity from the get go!
A pyramid cannot take form without it’s base layer, Think about it.
Think about how humanity’s ills vastly stem from money problems, yet a banking system still makes record quarterly profits amidst the decline of an “economic” downturn.

Then look in the mirror and ask yourself why do I let them get away with it?

Today I watched a presentation by Ed Griffith, the author of The Creature of Jeckyl Island which is about the creation of the federal reserve and the banking cartel. Ed really knows his stuff. In the pres, he actually said that the 9:1 ratio is works this way: a person deposits $1,000 in the bank. The bank doesnt get to loan 9/10th of that amount like you say in your article. Rather, the bank is allowed to loan 9 times the $1,000 which would be $9 ,000 which would be 10 times worse then the situation you are describing. I have to look into this a little more but thats what he said…